There seems to exist a common burden among nearly all men employed as merchant mariners; the crushing weight of the disintegration of personal relationships and the slow degradation of mental and emotional wellness. It should not come as a shock as, much like prisoners, these men have been separated from all that enriches life. Their condition seems to be comorbid with an outright denial of the operation of this process.
Never have I experienced fear, loneliness, frustration, and aggression as palpable as that displayed by my shipmates. The desperation and deep depression are thinly veiled by a perpetual struggle for power and for recognition of the victors of this battle; those who have achieved the highest level of masculinity and domination. The war is justified by a general acceptance that ‘this is how it is in the business.’
This tiny floating microcosm could not more accurately illustrate man’s failure to govern himself or to institute and protect any system of equity.
I have an arbitrary hypothesis that, were psychological testing performed on a set of ten men immediately before and after one month in prison and upon another set of ten preceeding and following a one month stint on a towing vessel, the results of the two data sets, having had their labels removed, would be nearly indistinguishable. Both environments force a subjective loss of personal power and individuality which, when combined with a mind-numbing sense of monotony, creates psychological trauma at levels that nearly always result in depression, anxiety, and aggression; all products of the route emotion that is fear.
M
thestrangestlifeivelived 
Lovely idea… But one thing differentiates them from each other more than any of the particularities that could make them seem similar, which would trump your experiment.
Choice. Mariners have choice, weather it be one they are willing to take or not, they have the choice, and the mariners that remain are those that chose this path; we will never hear from those that left. Needless to say that men in prison have been ridden from the responsibility and freedom of choice.
I do agree on the illustration you depict. I also believe that the complete isolation of the ocean, and the fact that all is planned for you, allows your mind a certain clarity and peace that the distraction (the richness of life) do not allow one to reach.
Then again, you could just be with a bunch of grumpy old men that are bitter for the dreams they had, and they never fed.
J.
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I could not agree more that choice is the defining factor that separates those confined to the vessel and those confined to a cell. To build from that, I would say that choice may be the single most important concept one must understand to attain a healthy (subjectively defined) path through the blip of time one is a physical being on earth. However, I also believe that an excessive attachment to the notion of choice and its power to affect change can create a certain cognitive dissonance in which the reality expected by the individual after making the ‘right choices’ stands in stark contrast against the reality that has actually unfolded.
As most would agree, we live subjectively; our experience is the only proof we have that we exist and that we may affect our world, which we are mostly certain exists as well. You would be justified in saying that mariners do have choice; however you would likely have a difficult time of convincing some of them of this. Families, mortgages, development of a skill set that is, or at least subjectively is, non-transferable to other industries, and above all the momentum of twenty to thirty years of the same behavior, make choice appear to be a non-reality.
Bravo for noting that a certain clarity is achieved through isolation and routine. Some of my best (in my opinion) writing occurs while confined to the vessel. I would argue that the same clarity is achievable in prison, though I cannot speak from experience. I would not fully agree that men and women in prison have been released from the process of choice in terms of cause and effect; the decisions of a prisoner may affect his or her existence exactly as would the decisions of someone in the outside world affect the latter individual. One could even argue that living in a microcosm such as prison or a small merchant vessel could amplify the power of choice, if, of course, you believe in the power of choice to begin with, which it seems you do.
I know many happy mariners, yet I chose to represent only one facet of my experience.
Thank you for reading and be well.
M
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